Headhunters
by Sasaki Jun'ichi
Summary: Kazura Naota has been on the road for a while, looking over his shoulder for bounty hunters. As he tries to escape from his old life and the people who hunt him, he now has to face two hunters who are not just any kind bounty hunters.


**Head Hunters**

_Disclaimer:_ The character are all taken or based upon characters created by **Kishimoto Masashi **from the series** "Naruto"**. Any authentic characters are created by **Sasaki Junichi **(A.K.A **Zeiram or Sasaki Jun**). "Head Hunters" is a fictional story based upon the Akatsuki members Kakuzu and Hidan and contains multiple chapters.

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**Chapter 1: A Midnight Walk.**

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The loud cracking of grass sizzled in the calm darkness from which Naota didn't know what it was. The feeling of being weightless in the ongoing blackness was beautiful, and he almost thought that this was the ultimate form of Zen. No feeling, no gravity, no light, only a simple sound, which was getting louder.

"_What was that?" _Naota thought, and he tried to focus on it. But somehow the inside of his head was a chaos, one part not remembering anything, and the other part seemed to be absorbing the eerie sizzling, which now went over into a crystal clear cracking.

Naota suddenly could distinguish something from the sound. The sound itself seemed to fall into 3 different parties, which had been one before, but because it still was echoed, and hollow he had a hard time understanding what they where.

"_Wait a minute…what am I doing here and…where exactly IS here?"_

Strangely enough Naota only though of that just a few seconds ago. What WAS he doing here anyway, this wasn't one of his daily meditations, where he would close his eyes and think of nothing, and loose himself sometimes in the calm darkness.

However slowly, just slowly his senses returned to him, and he could separate the sounds well enough to recognize all of them individually.

The cracking sound was the sound of heavy feet who where crushing the grass, fallen branches and leaves on the cold autumn ground. The second was the sizzling of crickets, which told Naota that it was already nighttime.

Together with the sound the feeling also slumbering back into his body, and suddenly the frost of an iron pain floated through his body.

He could feel all his limbs again, and it felt like they all had been severely beaten.

A drop of liquor ran down his face onto the ground, and as it left a wet trail just below his nose he could smell that it was blood.

"_Blood?" _he thought_, "Am I bleeding…what the hell happened to me?"_

As Naota came to his senses again he noticed that the feeling of floating hadn't taken away from him, and although he could feel his legs he wasn't standing on them.

"_But how is this possible, since I am certain of the fact that I am moving it's…"_

His thoughts where interrupted by a fading noise, the third noise he could distinguish, but that he couldn't understand at all since it wasn't something he could understand.

"_It seems I have to open my eyes"_ he thought, and slowly, very slowly he opened one eye.

The view wasn't really something out of the ordinary. What Naota saw was a simple forest at nighttime.

The big black trees where shaking in the wind, with their dead branches, and the grass was moist and drenched with the mud. The whole scene looked like a black swamp at night, which was mostly covered in shadow, but because the silver moon was shining so bright, had a layer of silverdust over it. From somewhere he could here a frog.

Suddenly it hit him with a bang, like he was knocked around all over again, and now he could place the view.

"_This was not the forest who lied next to the border of his village… these where the swamps lying on the border in-between the hidden village of the waterfall and if you would go West the fire county_" he thought.

"_But this is impossible, what am I doing here?"_

Kazura Naota didn't understand how he had gotten here, but at the side he notice that the feeling of "floating", still hadn't vanished. While looking down with one eye, he tried to make out the ground from his body, only to see that his feet where not touching the moist and soil filled ground.

"_But…BUT HOW_?!" Naota's mind couldn't place directly what he was seeing.

Was this an illusion, did he loop upon spiritual images, that where reflections of his inner self, or was he simply going crazy. Digging deeper into his mind, he was reminded of the pain, and the fact that he was bleeding from his head.

His head?... no wait…it wasn't so much the bleeding head wound he had, since that was something he could have gotten from falling down. He recently had developed a nasty habit of being clumsy, certainly around the old lady, and her granddaughter Kazumi.

But no, that wasn't it. He felt a strange pressure around his neck, and as he turned his head slightly the pieces of the puzzle all fell into their place.

Instead of "floating" he was being held up, by an extremely large person. In the moonlight he could only shiftily see a huge back that was covered with a black coat.

The rest of the head and legs where covered with the shadows of the naked trees. Whoever this guy was, he was strong enough to lift Naota with one hand and throw him over his should, using his back to support his arms lifting the weight, but even considering this technique was a better one, for him to move faster it was still impressive considering the fact that Naota was about 89 kilo grams. But still this guy didn't seem to have any trouble lifting Naota's body up, since he didn't walk that slowly, and his arm wasn't shaking at all, which by now wouldn't be that surprising, if he had carried Naota

from the village up until the swamps. As the man carried him further his mind wandered of back to the little village.

It had been a harsh year already. Getting away from his own country, only because…because of that dreadful incident. He didn't even want to think about it again. The main thing after his actions was that he had to run, out of Earth country, as a refuge.

He had been moving south only to end up in a small nameless village between the waterfalls of the hidden waterfall country and the forests of Fire country. The village lay near the great ocean with a great view on the mountains of Thunder country. He already had made a stop at various small villages and worked his way down to the swamps and rivers just to keep of the Stone shinobi's radars.

He was sure that after his actions, they had triggered a huge search party of hunters to track him down, and either kill him or simply get him back. Their reach wasn't as limited as to the borders of the Earth country, for once he had crossed the borders over to the party of great waterfalls, he found out in the nearest village that the Daimyo hadn't been sitting quiet in his mansion, back at home. When the Hunters came back empty handed the Daimyo put up a bounty of 5.000 ryou on his head and that message had spread within 2 days through the whole world.

He had to avoid the main villages now so he had to leave the hidden village of waterfalls as soon as possible, and had to go to a border space, which in this case was piece of hidden forest land near the ocean. It was at that village he would then make halt. His plans where from there to cross, a small part of the Fire country, to get there to the sea port, and then make wave towards one of the individual islands from the Water country. Also because Earth and Water country didn't had a good relationship with each other (because of their ruling "kage's") Naota was sure that he would be save their and hard to find, and if somebody would find out about his identity he might have a chance not to be handed out to Earth country. Those plans changed once he set foot in the small village at the ocean. Nobody seemed to know about the fact that he was a refuge which wasn't so weird because mainly they where a village of farmers, with no shinobi or business men.

No restaurants or casinos, or other establishments, just simply a few houses near the forest and the rest near the ocean. It was here that he was taken in by an old lady named Kisara, and her granddaughter Kazumi, and from that moment on, he had a new place to call home.

Starved and dehydrated he fell over to the side of the shore. Naota couldn't go on any longer, since the past view days had been a feverish trip through the swamps and wet edges of the rock terrain of the hidden waterfall into the forest, and also a continuing look out for bounty hunters who actually did appear. Although he was certain that he had taken the save route he still managed to walk into several ambushes by different bounty hunters. However it wasn't like Naota couldn't fight, since he was a master at swordfight. If you would give him a katana he would slash 20 trees in less then a few seconds all perfectly in half. However his big specialty was the use of the Wakasashi. In a set of swords you would have the Katana, which basically had the average length that a sword could have. The smallest piece of a set was the Tanto, who reminded him always of a slightly longer knife. But the Wakasashi was a short sword, somewhere in the middle of the other swords. Long enough to cause serious damage and give, but short enough to carry unnoticed. If you wouldn't know it was there you would never see that Naota even had a sword on him, which was something that he himself saw as a huge advantage.

Just before he reached the forest he was lured into another ambush, and as he looked up one bounty hunter, who had a terrible quickstep and a huge blade tied to his wrist came down upon him. Naota had quick reflexes, but this time through the hard times and the fact that he was also low on sleeping hours, he wasn't quick enough to doge the full amount of steel coming at him. In the end he finished the bounty hunter, by ramming a small wooden stick into his left eye, while having his blade trapped between the ground and his Wakasashi. Shriveling and with much movement the bounty hunter died, but it wasn't something Naota was shocked from. He had both seen and done worse.

The blade of his enemy had left a huge gapping wound in his gut, and slower as he was before he reached the shore and walked along the coast, just until he saw the view of little boats who where laying in the brown yellow sand. Leaving the forest and going alongside the coastline of the ocean was a risky business, since it was not unthinkable that a ship from the hidden village of Stone my sail by and catch him. However he was too injured, hungry and tired to go all the way through the forest, and go through Fire Country catching a boat to the islands. "_I wouldn't even survive the woods of Fire country as I am right now_" he thought, and heavily put one foot for the other. The wound which he had closed of with some wraps of his coat had opened again, and the light brownish piece of cotton was slowly turning into a mash dark red and black stains. Just like an oil stain it got bigger and bigger.

And just before he had reached the little fishing boats in front of him, he collapsed, and sank into a feverish and deep nightmare. In his dreams eh was again reminded of all the deeds he ha done in the post, and as the sky turned black, it spawned a red eye, which looked right through him. The piercing eye looked upon him, the sinner, and as the darkness swallowed him, the last thing he heard where the screams, cries and tears of his victims.

He woke up, bathing in his own sweat. His eyes looked upon a clean a neat little room.

"I see you are awake" a soft but old voice said. Naota slowly turned his head towards the sound, and his eyes spotted an old woman.

Her sliver white hair was not very long and it was tied to a knot, which brought out the shape of her head very well. With her wrinkled old face she looked like an over aged egg.

Her green eyes where magnified behind some thick glasses, and stood always a little sad, Naota remembered.

Somehow the dark, deep and suppressed feelings he had where gone. His angst was lifted like a midnight shade from his eyes. His mind was at ease when very quickly it fell into worry again when he searched his torso for his Wakasashi. The short sword was nowhere to be found. I was as if the old lady had guessed his thoughts, and with calm voice she said: "I'm sorry my boy, but we never allow any kind of weapons in the house, I have put your weapon in the shed"

Naota wasn't sure how to react, he simply couldn't think of something. So he kept laying in silence.

"Well this isn't going to do" the old lady said, and then she pulled back the sheets which covered his torso, and to his surprise he had not only new clothing but also his wound was properly bandaged.

"Follow me downstairs" the old lady said, and as Naota got up, he noticed how small the room really was.

Together with the old lady he got of the stairs into the kitchen. The stairs really just was an old ladder that was connecting the 2 parts of the little house with each other.

As he came down his eyes met those of a small girl, standing in the kitchen.

She had long red/auburn spiky hair, which glittered in the golden strings of the early dawn sun.

Fairly pale white skin was covering her thin cheeks that although their paleness still had a blush. But the most intimate she had where some bright yellow eyes that where glowing with a certain passion and it was as if there was a spark that relit the fire in his own brown eyes, a fire that had been long dead. That moment he knew that he would never leave this place again.

"Ara?" she said in a high pinched voice "I s-see our guest is a-awake"

As Naoto found himself again in the present, he felt the pressure of his weight pulling him down to the dirty soil of the ground. His body hung like a lifeless sack over the shoulder of the big man, and he didn't dare make a sound. His flashback had triggered anxious feelings inside him.

"_I…I need to go back, I have to escape_" he thought, with a mind that was as clear as the reflection in a mirror.

"Kisa-ba… Kazumi…" Naota thought, "I…I need to escape here.

Meanwhile he had made out the last sound that he heard just in the beginning.

When his had still felt like a popping tomato in the stew, he could not make out what it was. Coming back from that now, he realized that it was more then just a background noise.

It was the sound of voices. Voices of the men that had abducted him, presumably it actually where men, but listening to the high key and low key tones in the voices he could out that his kidnappers where two men.

"_It's better if I play dead and hear what their plans are before I try to get away_" Naota thought. He felt that that was the best tactic in this situation and beside that, the big guys grip felt like and iron block around his coat, so he didn't even would have a chance to get away without getting killed. So he closed his eye again, and listened to the talk that the two bounty hunters had with each other.

Hidan and Kakuzu already had walked a long way of the road in silence, but when they made a detour through the swamp Hidan started to complain. "I can't believe I let you talk me into taking this detour through the 'toilet' of the forest".

Kakuzu said nothing, but on his face appeared a huge 'angry' frown between his eyes.

Every other partner would have seen this, and would have understood the situation, but weather Hidan knew that Kakuzu's patience was being stretched beyond reasonable limits or that Hidan simply didn't care about that just wasn't clear.

"…this stuff get's everywhere, aibo, I am serious." Hidan rambled on.

Kakuzu suddenly looked up with his terrifying green eyes and then said:

"Would you shut up about it already" His voice sounded dry and had a low key to it, which gave Naoto cold chills on his back. He had to make an effort not to shiver while Kakuzu was holding up.

"Oiii, Kakuzu, don't start like this now, it was your rotten idea to get us through these gassy swamps in the first place, saying how this was a wonderfull detour and all, but we have walked now for 3 hours and I still don't see the border to the next country" Hidan said annoyed.

His voice was different from the other one, he sounded younger, both in speech as key, and he had this irritating high tone which was slightly off key, now that he had an argument with his partner.

A low growl escaped underneath Kakuzu's mask, and as he spoke again, Naoto shivered more from the threat which lied in the words, then the tone of the voice.

"Hidan, I swear that one day, I seriously am going to kill you"

"HAH, are you telling **me **that, Kakuzu?" Hidan said with a mocking voice, and a slightly suppressed smirk, which he kept well hidden from his partner.

"Honestly it's because you are the only one with whom I can team up in the first place, or else I would have never done so to have you as my partner, Hidan" Kakuzu said.

"Tse… it also wasn't my choice to go on with a greedy old bastard like you Kakuzu, and now that we have one of those bounty hunting jobs, I even like you less" Hidan bitched back.

'_So they **ARE **hunters'_ Naoto thought. This aid it all, these two where send by the hidden stone to track him down and bring him back. He now knew it better then ever, and in a trance of fever his brain searched for a way to escape.

'_I must get away'_ Naoto thought.

To be continued:

Chapter 2 will soon follow

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Title: **Chapter 2: The Great Escape **---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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